Halloween Movies: Best of All Time

Happy Halloween, blog world!

I do love Halloween. It’s a nice holiday — lots of fun, lots of silly. But not too much stress. You’re not expected to show up at every family’s home, there’s no feast to prepare. Just costumes and candy. And lots of giggles.

In honor of Halloween, we’re creating a Halloween Movie Hall of Fame. Well, we’re actually creating two. One for adults (read: scary, don’t watch alone at night) and one for family-friendly movies.

Since I’m far from an expert on scary movies, we’re relying on others to give us their best and why.

Rent one of these for tonight! And enjoy a stress-free holiday!

10 Scariest Halloween Movies

A young woman steals $40,000 from work and takes off to start a new life. As luck would have it, her rest stop at the Bates Motel is her final one. Much blame and creepiness is experienced before the twist ending. Taking a shower and a mother’s love were never seen the same.

A Halloween night turns deadly when a former child murderer escapes from the mental hospital and returns to his small hometown to terrorize a babysitter. Soon her friends start disappearing one by one….

What makes this the top fright fest? Could it be the fear of complete isolation in the face of disaster? Or the invisible enemy in sub-zero temperatures? How about the terrifying feeling of not knowing which of your supposed friends and colleagues are who they say they are, and not a shape-shifting alien? Yeah, all those things.

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into a New York apartment with a bad reputation. Sounds pretty normal these days but back in the 60’s it was a rare occurrence. Soon Rosemary finds out that the tenants, as well as her husband, and probably in that order, are intent on her having a baby. The downside to this bundle of joy is that it is Satan. No happy ending here.

By 1984 the slasher movie had been done to death (excuse the pun). Just how many masked killers could you see before fatigue set in? But Wes Craven had a brilliant twist on these types of films. First, he created a killer, Freddy Krueger, who instantly stood out from the rest of the pack. His face was burned beyond recognition, but Freddy wore no mask and didn’t stay silent.

9. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). Recommended by Cosmopolitan:

Kings of the late-’90s teen genre, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr. light up the screen in this classic. Plus, you can’t go wrong with a shirtless Phillippe in a locker room scene.

It may not pack the same punch of terror now that it did when it premiered in the ’90s, but Scream spawned numerous sequels and spoofs, birthing an entirely new genre of teen movie. And if you’re honest, the first time you saw it, you were totally freaked.

After dying in a car crash, the ghosts of Adam and Barbara Maitland are informed that they have to remain in their house for 150 years. This is fine, until their house is sold to a family they can’t stand.

At Monsters, Inc., the most important thing is scaring kids, because their screams power the town of Monstropolis. Sulley and Mike take pride in their job, and want to be the best in the business. When a little girl ends up in the monster town, mayhem ensues for the two friends.

I absolutely love all of the Ernest movies and one of these days I need to go out and buy them. Ernest Scared Stupid is without a doubt the darkest and scariest of the Ernest franchise so I would not watch it with your 4 year old but 8 to 10 year olds should find lots to love! After a misunderstanding, Ernest P. Worrell unleashes an evil troll on Halloween.

“Who ya gonna call?” Ghostbusters, of course! With a snappy theme song and the wisecracking Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray and the rest, this movie about three unemployed parapsychology profs who set up shop to rid the city of pesky goblins is a must-see for grade-schoolers on up. DVD includes commentary from director and stars, special effects documentary and more.

This movie is actually a fairly new addition to my families collection of Halloween movies for the kids. The movie makes up two shorts, The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was originally released on the big screen in 1949 but until recently, was not available on VHS or DVD. It was the 11th animated feature that Disney released and we love it.

It’s about a group of kids who believe a haunted house is planning on eating all the little kids that come to trick or treat at it’s door. They do an amazing job making the house one of the actual characters in the movie. It can be a little intense and scary at times so I don’t recommend this for younger kids.

It’s a haunted Halloween in the Hundred Acre Wood, and Roo’s new Heffalump pal, Lumpy, is excited to be trick-or-treating for the first time. That is, until Tigger warns them about the dreaded Gobloon who’ll turn them into a “jaggedy lantern” if he catches them!

10. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Recommended by kaboose.com:

Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloweentown, is bored and depressed about the same old build-up of Halloween every year. When he stumbles through a magical door leading to Christmastown, a joyful, happy place he tries to convince the bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloweentown to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween. While some of the creatures might be too scary for youngsters, kids 8 and up should be fine with it.

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We are Jason and Kendra Beutler (along with our kids, Kinsen and Jaybin) -- a family of Smoky Mountain enthusiasts. We LOVE Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and the Smoky Mountains. But it can be difficult to find information about the area. So we decided to make it easier. That's CabinConnection -- Smoky Mountain information for tourists, by tourists.